Are you ready for real-time tire pressure monitoring for your bicycle? It's coming! The technology is moving fast, costs are coming down, and it's likely that in the future, you'll be riding a bike with real-time time pressure monitoring. Tom Pidcock used some Zipp prototypes at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Strade Bianche that appeared to completely hide the tire pressure sensor within the rim, and now, Zipp's new AXS Wheel Sensor technology is a real, official product ready to be sold to consumers.
Let's take a look at the state of the technology and some of the applications that might help you ride faster or improve convenience by providing a real-time look at the pressure in your bicycle tires.
How do real-time tire pressure monitors for bicycles work?
A small sensor at the wheel (either at the presta valve in the past, or integrated directly into the rim bed itself in new high-end options like the Zipp 353 NSW and 303 SW) with a battery reads the real-time tire pressure and transmits it via ANT+ to a compatible head unit (Garmin Edge, Wahoo, Hammerhead) where it can be reviewed and if desired, recorded.
The spy photos of Pidcock's Omloop wheels appears to be largely what we're getting in the consumer-ready product, with the features about what you'd expect - green light at the rim indicates proper tire pressure at a glance, while red indicates pressure out of range, indicating a possible puncture or other pressure loss.
Integrated into the SRAM AXS ecosystem
No product is complete without a mobile app these days, and the new Zipp 353 NSW and 303 SW are no exception. They're designed to pair with your GPS-based head unit on your handlebars, of course, but also with your mobile phone.
Because SRAM is the parent company of Zipp, the new AXS Wheel Sensor also talks to the SRAM app, for example, it can help suggest the best tire pressure for specific applications, or even recommend specific tire models. But it also works with Garmin and Wahoo head units too.
Real-time tire pressure sensors for bikes are getting smaller and more tightly integrated
The original TireWiz by Quarq (Quarq, in turn, being owned by SRAM) was sort of a pod-shaped add-on to your presta valve. You would remove the valve core, and replace it with the TireWiz device - just like using a presta valve extender for tubular tires on deep-section carbon cyclocross rims. Pair it via ANT+ with your GPS cyclecomputer head unit, and bingo - you've got a real-time view of your tire pressure right on your handlebar.
The downside, they were pretty clunky and for road and triathlon applications where bikes are ridden at higher speeds, certainly not aerodynamic. For mountain, gravel, and cyclocross bikes, the pods could get grabbed by brush or weeds, making them easy to damage. And at a whopping $214 MSRP, the price point was well out of reach for curious amateurs. The SKS Airspy is a competing product at $166.99 is similar, but also pretty pricey for non-pros.
Then came TireWiz 2.0, which addressed some of those shortcomings. Instead of the "lollipop" pod, it now sat at the base of the presta valve, where it's a little more aero and less likely to be damaged. The price also came down to $120 MSRP. Smaller, lighter, cheaper, we're moving in the right direction!
Now Zipp - another SRAM owned company - is moving toward a fully integrated tire pressure sensor hidden within the rim, eliminating the need to add anything to the presta valve at all. A patent filing previously disclosed some of Zipp's plans, not just for the pressure sensor, but a sensor embedded in the rim that also captures yaw, lean angle, acceleration, and so on. Then Tom Pidcock tested what looks like a Zipp 303 rim with real-time tire pressure sensors built right into the rim during the Spring 2025 season, proving the technology proposed in the patent was real.
In the future, you can forget about add-on tire pressure sensors, and instead, may simply come to expect them as an included feature on high-end wheel or rim purchases. Unfortunately, I don't see how this would work with tubulars, but for riders who have adopted tubeless, this looks like a win.
Downsides
Well, a couple obvious ones. Cost - the AXS Wheel Sensor technology is only available on very expensive wheels at the start. But it's easy to see how the same tech could trickle down to more value-priced options in the future.
It's also "yet another" battery required item to bolt onto your bike, and due to the sensor location, there's no way for the tire pressure monitor sensors to draw power from Shimano Di2 or SRAM AXS batteries - thus, they require a CR2032 coin battery. A common, easy to get battery, but also disposable. SRAM says they last a little over a year, so it might be good to get in the habit of changing out the coin battery every time you change tires.
While the AXS Wheel Sensor does work with inner tubes, for riders who haven't yet adopted tubeless, you have to use Zipp's TPU inner tube, because the valves are specific to the sensor and thus proprietary.
My floor pump or mini pump has a gauge - why would I want this?
It's true that basically all floor pumps and some mini pumps have a gauge. However, you should consider:
- If you get a flat while on the road or trail, you have no way to recover the original tire pressure when using a CO2 cartridge or gauge-less mini pump. With a real-time tire pressure monitoring sensor, you can repair the flat and then use the readout on your head unit (or mobile phone) to return to your exact, preferred tire pressure.
- Gauges on pumps aren't terribly accurate nor repeatable. If you're running a road tire at 110 PSI, getting within 5 PSI with a floor pump might be just fine. If it's a little off and you get 107 PSI next time, this is acceptable. But sensors can be accurate down to .1 PSI. That's not needed on road bikes, but different applications - cyclocross, fat bikes, etc. use very low tire pressure, where more precision is useful and desired.
Does the AXS Wheel Sensor add or remove pressure in real-time?
The AXS Wheel Sensor does not inflate or deflate your tire. It is only a monitoring tool that notifies the rider whether the tire pressure is lower (or higher) than the range specified by the rider.
Technology does exist to add or remove tire pressure on the fly - systems were tested in Paris-Roubaix this year, for example. This type of technology holds promise for races and training rides on wildly varying surfaces - alternating smooth pavement sections between washboard gravel roads, for example. AXS Wheel Sensor does not have this capability yet.
Applications for racing
Outside's "The Velo Podcast" explored implications of real-time tire pressure sensors in the pro peloton in their episode, "What the heck is an all-road bike, anyway?", raising several good points. With real-time tire pressure sensors in play, imagine:
- A rider double-checking their tire pressure before attacking. Not perfect? Get a fresh bike or wheel change instead.
- Teams proactively monitoring their riders tire pressure remotely via telemetry to anticipate problems.
- Testing multiple tire pressures and recording the results, cross-checked against rider power output to determine which pressure is fastest on a specific terrain.
Applications for training
The idea of monitoring tire pressure during races is appealing, but most of our hours and miles are spent training, not racing. With integrated tire pressure monitoring on your wheels, riders can:
- Quickly see whether tires need to be topped up at a glance before rolling out on a training ride.
- Record tire pressure in an electronic training diary so you can experiment with different pressure and measure results.
- Replace/improve the crude gauges built into a floor pump - is it off? With a real-time sensor, you'd know.
Are these for cyclocross and/or gravel?
The recommended tire widths for the two new wheel models equipped with the AXS Wheel Sensor suggest "road" and "all-road" use cases, not intended for cyclocross and gravel.
But it's a sure thing that we'll see the AXS Wheel Sensors make their way to wider, sturdier rims suitable for cyclocross and gravel riders in the future. The Zipp 303 XPLR wheels, for example, offer a wider rim bed and support for wider casing off-road tires - but no AXS Wheel Sensor tech. Perhaps we'll see the AXS Wheel Sensor added to wheels like the Zipp 303 XPLR in the future.
Real-time cyclocross tire pressure measurement
For cyclocross racers, mechanics, and teams, the idea of real-time tire pressure monitors is intriguing. Perhaps in no other discipline are very small changes in tire pressure so important. According to Mark Legg, who served as Katie Compton's mechanic, Compton could feel and request change to tire pressure in increments as low as 1/2 PSI. Regardless of whether you believe that, even casual amateurs can easily feel a 2 PSI difference, so the idea of small sensors to instantly detect tiny changes in cyclocross tire pressure is appealing.
In a cyclocross race, a rider could get a real-time alert on a head unit or vibration on a wristwatch, alerting them that they have a puncture and they should pit immediately - perhaps before the rider even notices or rides past the pit entrance.
There are also interesting implications for training. Imagine doing laps at your favorite race course, experimenting with slightly lower and higher tire pressures, while your Garmin or Wahoo records the tire pressure, your segment and lap times, and then makes a recommendation for the exact tire pressure that will produce the fastest lap. The technology to do this type of analysis, even for amateurs, is nearly here!